Akira Sakata (reed, vo)
Akira Sakata was born in Kure-city, Hiroshima in 1945. Studied marine biology at Hiroshima university. Formed a group Saibo-bunretsu (Cell fission) in Tokyo in 1969, and was also performing with various free-jazz musicians during this time. Since the late 1960s, Sakata has been a constant figure in jazz and creative music scenes as an ever evolving and adventurous, multi-instrumentalist, and member of classic groups such as Yamashita Yosuke Trio, from 1972 till 1979, and Wha-ha-ha plus many of his own, like the Sakata Akira mii. He has recorded with Chris Cosey, Peter Brotzmann in Last Exit, DJ Krush, Yoshimio, and others. In 2005 he began peforming with guitarist Jim O’Rourke, drummer Chris Corsano and acoustic bassist Darin Gray. They’ve since released three albums together. Friendly Pants is the first American release by Sakata in more than 20 years. It pairs the 65-year-old traveler alongside bombast Chikamorachi (Corsano/Gray) and O’Rourke as the producer.www.akira-sakata.com/

Jim O’Rourke (wood bass)
Born 1969 in Chicago. O’Rourke encountered the music of Derek Bailey as youngster and began visiting him in London at the age of 13. Eyes opened to the power of improvisational guitar, he released several of his own highly experimental works and has worked closely with John Fahey and Loren Mazzacane Connors. During his long association with the Chicago experimental and improv scene O’Rourke participated in several bands and projects including Gastr Del Sol and Loose Fur. His work with Takehisa Kosugi music director of the Merce Cunningham Dance Company as well as Tony Conrad, Arnold Dreyblatt, Christian Wolff and others built bridges between contemporary and popular music. O’Rourke’s release of landmark albums Bad Timing and Happy Days in 1997 and Eureka in 1999 garnered much attention. From 1999 to 2005 he was a member of Sonic Youth, playing bass, guitar and synthesizer as well as recording and mixing the band. In 2004 he won a Grammy Award for his production of Wilco’s A Ghost is Born. O’Rourke has also earned a loyal following for his participation in numerous albums by various artists around the world. He has a deep knowledge of Japanese culture and currently lives in Tokyo. Some of his many production credits in Japan include Quruli, Kahimi Karie, and Eiko Ishibashi. He also continues to be a consummate collaborator, working with Akira Sakata, Merzbow, Yoshihide Otomo, Seiichi Yamamoto, Boredoms and others. His recordings of Toru Takemitsu’s Corona for pianists Tokyo Realization was awarded the Agency for Cultural Affairs Arts Festival Award for Excellence in 2006. He has also scored films by Werner Herzog, Olivier Assayas, Shinji Aoyama, Koji Wakamatsu and others. His own short films have been part of the 2004 and 2006 Whitney Biennial and the 2005 Rotterdam Film Festival. O’Rourke is a diverse and powerful artist. Always searching, his borderless activity goes beyond the common labels Alternative, Post-rock, Experimental-pop, Film music, Free music, Jazz, Americana, Contemporary music and continues to defly classification. (Jim O’Rourke photo by Ujin Matsuo)Jim O’Rourke Bandcamp

Giovanni Di Domenico (P.f, key)
Giovanni Di Domenico, pianist, performer, composer, was born in Rome on the 20th July 1977, a significantly tempestuous period in socio-political terms, featuring hostile polarizations and an ostensive paramilitarism, mutinous ideological confrontations and bloody terrorist attacks, rendered infamous in the description ‘Years of Lead’. In that particularly caustic summer, the so-called ‘Movement of 1977’, non-aligned, without any ties to the Parliament and non-violent, broke into the scene of prevalent conspiracy-steeped paranoia condemning the repressive, discriminatory and authoritarian tendencies of the Italian State and demanding equality for minorities and further civil rights. The coinciding liberalization of the media market, putting an end to RAI’s monopoly, further defined this period as the prime moment for pirate radio, with the consequence of a libertarian fragmentation of youth culture, epitomised by punk. One could argue that Giovanni, self-taught until the age of 24, inherited – in philosophy, politics and artistically – the most benign and affirmative traits of that period, diversifying his action in the context of a recently unified Europe, promoting improbable connections, exploring varied geographies, comfortably manoeuvring aesthetical fringes and making a commitment to live performance at its most liberating and engaging. Surprisingly, the path that lead him to that point had an unexpected detour: following his father’s consecutive assignments as a civil engineer he actually lived out his first decade in Africa – until he was five in Libya, from then until his eight anniversary in the Cameroons and until ten in Algeria. His far off native country was not synonymous with civil unrest as much as with opera, whose arias he would memorize with his siblings in order to practice the language and provide some family entertainment. The condition of expatriate had a strong influence in his education – he clearly remembers the calls of the muezzin, the sound of exotic musical instruments in local markets, the ritualistic expression music took in the streets of Yaoundé, or the songs he heard from his nanny in the Cameroons. When he finally enrolled in music school – majoring in ‘jazz piano’- he further built on an encyclopaedic technique; rhythm, harmony and tone are informed by non-western traditions yet equally sensitive to Debussy’s “Préludes”, Luciano Berio’s “Sequenzas”, to the ‘ambi-ideation’ heard in Borah Bergman’s Soul Note recordings, Cecil Taylor’s polissemic density, Paul Bley’s bruised transparency and of course, the most radical manifestations stemming from the underworld of pop music, invariably tied together by his own original praxis. A distinction – one would call it generational – he shares with many of the musicians he has crossed paths with recently, of which we could enumerate Nate Wooley, Chris Corsano, Arve Henriksen, Jim O’Rourke, Akira Sakata, Alexandra Grimal, Tetuzi Akiyama, João Lobo or Toshimaru Nakamura. Di Domenico has founded his own label, Silent Water, home of an eclectic and occasionally unclassifiable production. He lives in Brussels.Giovanni di Domenico official

Tatsuhisa Yamamoto (drums）

Akiko Nakayama (Alive Painting)
Visual artist Akiko Nakayama creates installations, live performance and photographic works dealing with energy cycles, movement and colors. Employing a wide range of techniques, her unique approach to live painting results in melting landscapes, kaleidoscopic patterns and surreal and saturated vistas. Working in collaboration with some of Japan’s most distinctive improvising artists, including Keiji Haino, Akira Sakata and Hiromichi Sakamoto, she pursues what she titles ‘alive painting’, in which she aims to find the ‘existence of life’ in the act of creating out of nothingness.akiko.co.jp